Score
Gameplay:	8
Graphics:	4
Sound:	5
FunFactor:	9
PlasmaFactor:	2
Overall:	5.6

Spider-Man 2 Review
August 9, 2004 by Brian Callam

by Brian - August 9, 2004

Spider-Man 2 is a great movie. One of the best, if not the best comic book movie ever, and so the game based on the movie had a lot of potential. After all, it borrows the freedom you see in games like Grand Theft Auto and True Crime with lifelike web swinging, and rag doll physics. Despite that though, the game turned out to be the biggest hit and miss title I�ve ever played. What exactly went wrong? Read on to find out.

Fluff

Spider-Man 2 takes place in a fully rendered life-size Manhattan, and loosely follows the story of the movie. By loosely I mean that while Doc Ock is the main super villain, you will also encounter other villains from the comic books throughout the game including Rhino, Shocker, and Mysterio. You will also fight side-by-side with Black Cat a few times in the game.

The game is separated into chapters, and during each chapter you will have several tasks to complete, whether they be completing an assignment for the Daily Bugle, getting to class on time, or getting a certain number of hero points. Once you complete all the missions, you get to the next chapter. Simple, right? Well, let me explain hero points first. You get hero points whenever you complete a task, such as the above-mentioned ones, or things such as beating up random thugs or stopping a car jacking. People on the street who are in need of help will call Spidey as he swings by. You can choose to ignore them if you wish, but if you need hero points, you better help them out. This gets very repetitive though, because there are only a few types of tasks people will ask of you, and ten minutes into the game you will most likely have seen them all. You can also deliver pizzas to get hero points, but there is only one pizza place and its not that easy to find. Hero points are used to buy upgrades at the Spidey Store. There are several of them scattered throughout the city, but sometimes it takes a long time to find one. Here you can buy faster swings, better fighting combos, and even swinging tricks.

The bad part about the hero point missions though is that, as I said, they are very repetitive, and they seem to only be there in order to fluff the game a reasonable length. If I didn�t have to do get all of these stupid hero points I could beat the game in maybe 6 hours. Instead, it turns out to be about 10 � 12 hours to beat the game.

It�s not all bad though. The web swinging is extremely well done. It feels and looks just like it does in the movie. In fact, I�d say swinging around town is the best part of the game. Unlike the first Spider-Man movie game where you just launched webs into the sky, Spider-Man 2�s webs actually have to stick to something whether it is a building, tree, or light post so if you go too high you will not be able to swing. You also have the ability to launch two webs at the same time so you can either dangle high in the air, or slingshot yourself in another direction.

Combat is also done very well. At first glance it may look like a button masher, but there is actually a lot more to it than that. You can punch enemies using the B button, web them up using Y, and dodge using X. Whenever you are about to be attacked, your spidey sense tingles (a purple glow appears around your head). You can then dodge the enemy�s attacks and even counter their attack with one of your own. Pretty much any move you see in the movie can be done in the game. My personal favorites are the web-to-ankles flip counter, where you dodge an enemy attack, launch a web at their ankles, and then jump over them to make them fall on their face, and of course the hang them from a light post combo. You can even swing after and land on a speeding getaway car like you saw in the first movie. You also have a mode called Spider Reflexes, otherwise known as bullet time. It slows down time so you get more time to dodge, and at the same time your attacks are more powerful and you are faster than your enemies. You don�t really need this much during the game, although it really helps against Dock Ock�s fast attacks.

Rushed Out the Door

If you look at the screenshots, and you see the ones of the pre-rendered cut-scenes, you may be wondering why the graphics got such a low score. Well, the pre-rendered cut-scenes are few, and although they look fantastic, most of the cinematic scenes use the in-game engine, which looks terrible. Some of the scenes even have glitches where some characters get stuck in a twitchy state. It gets very annoying.

Another thing that really ticks me off is that the pedestrians look very blocky and their textures are pretty low resolution. When you are just swinging around town you won�t notice it much, but whenever you go up to someone asking for help it zooms in on them and it becomes very obvious how bad they look. The cars in the game have the same problem. All of the main characters in the game at least look decent though.

Now, like I said, the pre-renders look great. They are so good infact the first one I saw I thought it was actually a clip from the movie. There are some other good things. The animation is pretty good, and when you fire off a web, it will stay on the side of the building even when you have let go of it. This got me thinking though, who the hell cleans up the mess that Spider-Man leaves all over town? Surly someone must, or the city would be covered in his sticky webs. Anyway, that�s besides the point. Another thing that�s cool about the graphics is that it uses rag doll physics for all of the characters. This occasionally causes some glitches (Doc Ock final battle comes to mind), but its cool to be able to pummel someone and throw them into the air even after they are unconscious. However, one other thing that bothered me was that when you fling a guy into the air with an uppercut or a web, when they hit the ground they will bounce back up like five feet in the air. It just doesn�t look natural. For the most part the physics are cool though.

What, no Music?

There is a great void in the music portion of Spider-Man 2. Although there is music occasionally, 90% of the time you will be swinging around town hearing nothing but people calling you a menace, or people telling you you�re �the man.� The music that does play is good, but it seems to only play when you are near a mission objective, which means you will probably only hear it for 30 seconds before a cut-scene starts. I was really disappointed because of this.

The sound effects have a real comic book feel to them, which is good, and most of the voice acting is well done. Tobey Maguire (Spider-Man) and Alfred Molina (Doc Ock) really shine here, but Kirsten Dunst�s (MJ) lines come off stale and uninspired, as does whomever it is that plays Jameson, and the people on the street.

Wahooooooo!

Despite its graphical, audio, and technical problems, Spider-Man 2 is still a very fun game. I can swing around Manhattan for hours without getting bored. Beating up the same old thugs all the time may get boring, but webbing them up to the street lights and then beating them as they hang there helpless does not. If you manage to master combat and the Spidey sense, combat can be a blast as well. Dodging attacks over and over gives combat a sort of matrix feel and its just simply fun. Even chasing down a getaway car and landing on the roof is enjoyable experience. Still, nothing beats the swinging. Oh, and the leaping whole blocks at a time. That�s fun too.

Twitch Glitch Twitch

Ugh. The absolute worst part of this game is that it is loaded with glitches and bugs. It seems they rushed the game out the door in order to release it in time for the movie. Well, that didn�t work out to well. As I said in the graphics section, some of the cut-scenes become twitch-fests, and even some parts of the actual game do as well due to the rag doll physics. There aren�t any load times between any parts of the city except for going into some buildings, but there is slowdown in some places. There is also this one mission where you must beat up a bunch of mechanized battle suits, and although there are no problems here, after you beat it, these things will begin attacking citizens when they call for help. When these things show up in the city the game slows down to a point where it becomes unplayable, and I even had the colors become inverted one time when these things came, not to mention the times when I had to restart my GameCube because these things caused the game to freeze.

The only redeemable quality in the plasma factor rating is that Spider-Man 2 has great replay value because it is very open ended. Once you complete the game you can still swing around town helping people and beating up thugs, and for the most part doesn�t get boring.

 

You might want to rent it�

Like I did. This game makes a good rental because it is pretty fun and it gives you a lot of freedom. However, for every good thing Spider-Man 2 has, it has an equally bad, sometimes worse part to compensate, and for this I can not suggest purchasing this game. If this game hadn�t been rushed to be released alongside of the movie, this may have been a great game, but as it turns out, its not. Its very hot and cold, if you know what I mean.